Archives for White House

President Barack Obama, citing a new White House study suggesting that small businesses pay far more per employee for health insurance than big companies, said Saturday the disparity is "unsustainable — it's unacceptable."

"And it's going to change when I sign health insurance reform into law," the president said in his weekly Internet and radio address.

President Barack Obama's assertion Wednesday that government will stay out of health care decisions in an overhauled system is hard to square with the proposals coming out of Congress and with his own rhetoric.

Even now, nearly half the costs of health care in the U.S. are paid for by government at all levels. Federal authority would only grow under any proposal in play.

Administration officials began talking privately to major players in the health care industry within a few weeks of President Barack Obama's inauguration, a newly released list of White House visitors shows.

Obama on Wednesday night released the list of visits by health care executives after a government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, announced it planned to sue to try to get White House visitor logs. Only names and dates were released, not the visitors' titles or employers.Read More

In cutting deals with hospitals and drug makers, President Barack Obama is giving a private inside track to special interests that's at odds with his promise to make policy in the open.

Obama promised Americans he would hold special interests at arm's length — that it would no longer be business as usual in Washington. He pledged to open government and let the public and press hold his administration accountable.

Despite occasional talk of pragmatism -- of simply doing what works and is necessary -- the Obama administration has veered to the far left with a hang-the-expenses, collectivist agenda that will turn our society upside down while likely wrecking its economy, and here comes the big question.

President Barack Obama used to command sky-high approval ratings from Americans in the polls.

No more.

The President's job approval rating is down to 55 percent -- below the two-thirds popularity enjoyed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush at the end of their first six months in office.

Both Carter and the elder Bush were one-term Presidents.

Obama's inability to deal effectively with the many problems affecting the nation, along with growing dissatisfaction not only among rank-and-file Americans but also within his own party, signals trouble for the young, inexperienced President.

The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today's bleak landscape.

The administration's annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama's budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle key terror suspects, focusing on intelligence-gathering rather than building criminal cases for prosecution, a government official said Saturday.

The recommendation is expected from a presidential task force on interrogation methods that plans to send some findings to the White House on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama's rosy facade is cracking under the harsh light of reality as the young, inexperienced President's optimism faces an increasing storm of record deficits, economic morass and failed promises.

Obama's hope for a quick resolution on health care remains on life support while the sins of past President George W. Bush take center stage amid new revelations of expanding spy programs and CIA lies to Congress.